No one knows (apart from the devs) how "Skill Based Matchmaking" truly works. From my experience, it seems to take SPM and place players on teams based on that, whereas the SUM total of each teams SPM would be as close as possible.

That's all fine and dandy, except that SPM is not a determinant of skill. Well, at least not by itself.

What are stats that we can track to determine actual player skill (ASP)?

-Score per minute (SPM)

-Kill/Death Ratio (KDR)

-Win/Loss Ratio (WLR)

None of these as a standalone stat can determine player skill.

Score per minute determines a player's aggressiveness.

Kill/Death Ratio determines a player's ability to kill.

Win/Loss Ratio determines a player's ability to do what's necessary to win.

Each of these three stats will vary based on the player's team they're on.

-An average player on a team full of great players will have a lower SPM, Lower K/D and higher W/L ratio, typically.

-An average player on a team full of bad players will have a higher SPM, higher K/D and lower W/L, typically.

(Think about playing solo vs playing with a team of players. When you're on a team of good players, you usually have to "fight" for kills, resulting in more deaths because you're playing more aggressive. You'll also be "fighting" for objectives. You'll also win more games. When you're playing solo, you'll get a few more kills typically, the objective won't be "fought" for. But you'll typically lose more games. This is why you run into average clans, where their K/D is between 1-2 and their W/L is much higher than normal.)

With that in mind, there needs to be a way to balance these three stats to come up with Actual Player Skill.

Actual Player Skill could be calculated as such:

Good player:

SPM: 400

K/D: 2.0

W/L: 2.0

Actual Player Skill: 1000

Bad player:

SPM: 200

K/D: .75

W/L: .75

Actual Player Skill: 350

Average player:

SPM: 300

K/D: 1.2

W/L: 1.2

Actual Player Skill: 510

Now, take a player that plays the objective very hard, but takes a lot of deaths in the process, but helps his/her team win.

Aggressive Player:

SPM: 550

K/D: .75

W/L: 2.5

Actual Player Skill: 1,165

Now, take a player that camps, doesn't play the objective, and doesn't contribute to the team, but posts high K/Ds.

Campy player

SPM: 185

K/D: 2.75

W/L: .5

Actual Player Skill: 393

As you can see, the formula works. If the objective is to win, you want the guy with the higher APS on your team, regardless.

The formula can be calculated using each gametype when matchmaking occurs, which would make it so players who play TDM predominantly don't have a lower APS than someone who only plays objective gametypes.

I consider myself an aggressive player, and my stats give me an APS of 1,058.

The fomula I use for this is:

Actual Player Skill = SPM * [1+(K/D + W/L) / 2)]

You take the K/D and W/L and add them together. Then you add 1. (If you don't add 1, it gives K/D and W/L too much "weight") Then you divide it by two. Times that number by the Score Per Minute and you get Actual Player Skill.

I used this formula on a bunch of my friends to see where they'd rank, and sure enough, it seemed to put players right where they belong in terms of Actual Player Skill. I believe this formula works.

Most of the time the game runs smooth, but you can still constantly be up to 0,5s-1s behind the action and you only see it on the killcams, or as lack of hitmarkers if you play HC where you should've gotten one (you shoot on your screen but are already dead). And that is a lot when you consider how fast you are killed by someone who is not having any connection issues. This is an issue for many people in this game, and also in the two previous ones.

I'm honestly slightly or significantly behind everyone in most matches i play, and that does have a huge impact on my stats. And there's nothing i can do, my own internet connection is very good. You die more and get robbed of kills, and loose more often because you can't help your team as much as you could without the lag handicap.

None of the stats mean a damn thing until we are even most of the time on a level playingfield, there will always be lag in online gaming but there's way too much of it in the last 3 CoD-games.

Well then "Skill" will never be aknowledged by me because every time I shoot someone first and I die first, it just makes me want to throw away the game. I'm not being outplayed I am being lied to. Competitive is only worth watching if it LAN.

The stats are still affected because you have to adapt your playstyle and slow things down a lot. And this can happen in most of the matches you play, which in the long run will make your stats not a true representation of your skill level.

Also someone who never has connection issues gets easy kills on people who are lagging, which gives their stats a boost that wouldn't be there in a more level playing field.

I may still **** the enemy but my 9 or whatever deaths I do not accept when I am skipping around like a fairy on Treyarch's Kmart servers. I may as well have something over my head saying that I have no chance of winning a gunfight up close and that I am on a fake 4 bar, a 2 bar in a real game.

I like this formula, but instead of usin the W/L in your stats you should base it on victory and defeat medals in your combat record. If there is a ton of lag on your connection, similar to me, and get lagged out of games that change the outcome a lot. My asp woth the current formula is around 800 but if you use the medal things it brings mine over 1000

I really appreciate what you did, although im ot great on maths it seems adequate. I would ust add that I dont consider SPM KD and WL as 3 Stats "equal": WL is in my opinion more expressive of a players skill. Because you can spam EMP all day long and raise your SPM just like that. You can killwhore on Objectives and KD to the roof top. But you cant get 2000 Wins just like that. Yes you can boost it but...not as easy.

Agree with those that talked about the playing solo vs playing party variable.

DISAGREE with all (even Tru11, sorry!) that say that playing in party is easier, because in BO2 it simply is not.

Meant this for the OP: Win/Loss shouldn't be factored in. I miss the days of mercenary TDM, but am stuck playing against sometimes very organized teams. I don't belong to a clan or play with other people. I have no desire to make "friends" on PSN, so should I be punished due to the fact that I have a W/L of only .85? To me, that's not bad considering I don't play with people I know ever.

Sorry but you're terrible at the game. You say W/L is the most important yet you have a 0.98 W/L. The one time I ever came across you, you session joined got smacked by me twice and rage quit. After being called on how terrible you were you cried about lag. You are bad, your APS is 0. Get lost

See here's the thing, your one head to head moment to show what a great player you were, you failed to show up. You joined the game and got outgunned twice. I was using a MSMC, you chose the ultimate noob weapon, the R870. I proceeded to kill you twice in close quarters and you rage quit. You then blamed lag because I embarrassed you. You have no skill, you are garbage. Feel free to join session again and get smacked around, you could use the practice

The R870 is not a n00b weapon, try again, that gun is hitmarker central even with the Long Barrel and laser sight, and the lag makes it even worse of a gun considering if you're even .5 seconds behind you're gonna die because you're opponent isn't exactly where you shot at, and your one shot to kill is now gone, and they have the advantage of catching you off guard.

I appreciate your effort. However, stats aren't reliable in this game (they are accurate, just not worth much).

I have spent weeks grinding for gold guns. I would play matches only going for headshots, not caring how many times I died and not trying to win.

If you play games like hardpoint and domination, and are attempting to recapture a zone, you will die continually, not get many points/kills (as the enemy is set up defending), and you will probably lose if you have to do all this work for a mediocre team.

I have a 1.1 K/D, 225 SPM, and .85 W/L and yet I can smack the ever living shite out of the enemy during any given match (especially TDM). Stats are all but worthless.

There is no master formula to judge skill. Well there might be, but there also might be the formula of everything that explains everything in the universe in simple mathematical terms. So, it's unlikely. The formula you have put together does work in some ways, but there are too many factors to judge a player by stats. You want to know how good a player is? Play with him/her. That's the only way to accurately judge it IMHO.

Glad somebody has taken the time to do some maths to try calculate a real skill level. I think the calculation you have come up with is really good.

Based on it my APS is 950.52 (SPM 356, K/D 1.22, W/L 2.12).

Somebody mentioned medals (victory medals I think). I like this idea as we are all aware of the dreaded host migration killing games and giving everybody a loss. I think the formula can be improved based on this.

On an alternative note, some of the points raised here are quite childish;

Firstly crying about lag consistently is getting tiresome, lag is an equal playing field, sometimes you get it sometimes you dont but everyone gets lag and players still pulls off high SPM / K/D / W/L. So please stop crying about lag and learn to adapt.

Secondly some people like statsitics and like to utilise the information they offer, what is with all the hate? If you disagree fine but to turnaround to people that obviously spend time in this area and say nobody cares is just harsh. Will people start to realise that some people care for games more than others and with the current times gaming is one of the highest past times, its just the way the world is going.

Finally, boosting is a problem, and boosted stats are quite obvious (7000 unstoppable medals is a good start lol). If you are working on your guns then yes the formula will not portray your actual skill level but it can give you an idea of how you are progressing. The formula is not set in stone, the OP put it out there for people to respond with constructive feedback to try help improve it.

Using a UAV, CUAV, VAST combo will increase your SPM obviously however this combo will give the team more chance to win the game therefore being globally effective for the team.

SPM should be entirely removed from the equation. Reason being is that you can camp you **** off on Nuketown and still walk away from a game with an SPM of 500 or greater. I have friends who only play Nuketown or smalller maps and have SPMs in the 600-700 range.

Also, if you're a good player playing with good players your SPM will be low because there's not enough points to go around for everyone. For instances I don't play unless I can get a party going. My W/L has gone from sub 1 to 1.5 but my SPM has actually gone down

K/D is also something else that's subjective to who you're playing with. If you're on a good team you're most likely going to build off each others Streaks earning VSATs and EMPs. This means the other team is at a severe disadvantage to you. Your K/D will go up but does that mean you're good? No, it just means your team as a whole is good.

W/L is subjective to your team. The better your team is the more wins you're going to get. In all you're not going to have a low W/L if you're in a team, period. This has nothing to do with you but with the 5 other guys on your team.

So in the end you're not calculating how good someone is but rather how good they are within the context of their team and game modes

Also, someone could play TDM a ton. A high SPM in TDM would be 300 wereas I have a friend who can post a 1000 SPM in Hardpoint if all goes according to plan. Take his stats and you get 1900 vs 300 depending on the game mode he plays

The APS would be higher if you played in parties, but I still have a higher APS playing solo.

Free for all

367 * [1+(3.76 + 29.5) / 2)]=6,470.21

Dom

410 * [1+(1.74 + 24.78) / 2)]=5,846.6

Sharpshooter

470 points per game * [1+(3.09 + 26.77) / 2)]]=7,487.1

When I play solo I get the host, so people can't pull the plug and end the game. If you didn't get losses when winning games then playing in a party would yeild a much higher APS. For example, my real dom wlr.

See how skewed this gets when you don't lose. I have a friend who has only lost maybe 3 or 4 games total in MW3. He always plays TDM in with a full party of people who know what they're doing. Because of this he never loses. I wouldn't be surprised if his APS would be in the hundreds of thousands since his W/L is around 300 or something stupid like that